While I’ve had all my other questions answered regarding my diet, macro nutrients and routine (to some extent) answered, there’s just a few things that I want some other T-Nationers opinions on.
For awhile (even when I was busting my ass in the football weight room at my JC and high school). I never have been able to build a SOLID physique. Partly I think this is because I have the genes of the ectomorph (soft arms, body, moderately lean) yet even when I trained I never looked HYUUGE, much less defined. I want to give it an honest shot now, with the right training, diet and most of all a LONG-term dedication.
At 6’ ~180 lbs. (not sure on body fat, probably 11-13%) I starting to think it’s my lack of lean muscle mass that is giving me that skinny-fattish look, coupled with ample BF. Should I focus my next year or so on from this point on at increasing muscle mass, or drop some fat first?
muscle, 11-13%isn’t that much bf. I think the problem is that you’re 6 foot, 180. Now don’t get me wrong, we weigh the same, but I’m shorter and fatter. I’m not meening to diss you. Don’t you think 200 pounds on your frame, even with a wee bit higher bf would look better?
Try this:
In the spring and summer, lean out. Shoot for 1-2 lbs/week of fat lost.
In the Fall/Summer, bulk up. Shoot for 1-2 lbs/week of muscle gain.
Allow about a fallow month to eat at maintenance and work on strength/form/technique/girls in between bulking and cutting. This allows you to not crash-diet/rebound when switching gears.
Because other than that, you just made a ‘cut-or-bulk’ thread without pictures, and deserved to be flamed to shit for it.
im 6 feet and 240 lbs and im still bulking up 20-30 more pounds.
when you’ll be seeing your lift numbers going up 5 lbs every time and then when you finish the bulk and start cutting down and seeing them probably even dropping a bit you’ll realize bulking is the fun part
Alight, thanks for the input. I’m going to focus solely on increasing muscle mass then, and just shed whatever excess fat off way later. Another question is, I think I have slowed my metabolism down from taking a month off (finals + being sick) and just wasn’t 6 meals a day, big meals, etc. How is the correct way to switch over to my “bulk”?
I have my caloric requirements laid out for maintenance and bulking, so should I first just eat at maintenance for a month and let my metabolism speed up then increase my cals? I don’t want to yo-yo things and freak my body out.
[quote]ninjaboy wrote:
I would eat at maintenance for 2 weeks or so, then add 250 to 500 cals a week until you bump it up to your bulking intake. [/quote]
Pretty solid advice, especially if you have your calories fairly well mapped out. And I do agree that bulking is the way for you to go. People do seem to get fixated on needing to be shredded year round and while I am certainly not advocating your getting sloppy while adding muscle, I think you will be much happier with your physique by getting some size.
[quote]Kuz wrote:
ninjaboy wrote:
I would eat at maintenance for 2 weeks or so, then add 250 to 500 cals a week until you bump it up to your bulking intake.
Pretty solid advice, especially if you have your calories fairly well mapped out. And I do agree that bulking is the way for you to go. People do seem to get fixated on needing to be shredded year round and while I am certainly not advocating your getting sloppy while adding muscle, I think you will be much happier with your physique by getting some size.
Good luck. Keep us posted.[/quote]
Will do. I’m just a bit worried that since I will begin MMA 2-3 days a week in the afternoon I’m either:
A. Going to be to beat to practice from lifting in the morning.
B. Not gain muscle!
I’m going to start back up next Monday. I’ll post my routine too and see what you guys think. I’m going with either the Superhero workout (4 days) or a similar routine (5 days).